Youth Unemployment in Kenya: A Threat to Human Security And Human Diginty

Abstract

Security is an issue in Kenya which appears in the newspapers almost every day. However, by security most often is meant safety from physical violence, such as terrorism, violent crime, interethnic violence or the violence of the ‘security’ apparatus itself. However, for most Kenyans the daily concern is security from other threats such as hunger, disease, homelessness, and especially unemployment.
To live a life that can be dignified with the word ‘human’ there must be security from these threats, “human security”. This paper focuses on the experience of unemployment and underemployment, especially by youth in Kenya, from two perspectives: using the
analytical tools of human security theory, and the theological categories of Catholic Social Teaching. The state’s responsibility to provide true security is seen to suffer froma lack of focus on economic structures that would address unemployment and its effects.
Recommendations are made to improve that focus, which ironically would address not only immediate human needs but ultimately the physical violence which seems so impossible to solve.